


Creating Spaces

by EmberLeo



Series: The Emberquizzy Chronicles [8]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fluff, Modern Girl in Thedas, Romance, Self-Insert, pagan inquisitor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-11-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27407662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmberLeo/pseuds/EmberLeo
Summary: Snippets of crafty community life with EmberQuizzy and Solas.Not necessarily canon to Canticle of Dreams.For Hezjena2023's Cottagecore Challenge, via the Fen'Harem
Relationships: Female Inquisitor/Solas (Dragon Age)
Series: The Emberquizzy Chronicles [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1241567
Comments: 14
Kudos: 13
Collections: Solasmance Cottage AU Challenge





	Creating Spaces

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beaubashley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beaubashley/gifts), [Hezjena2023](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hezjena2023/gifts), [piecesofsolas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofsolas/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I gotta get out of bed and get a hammer and a nail  
> Learn how to use my hands,  
> Not just my head, I think myself into jail  
> Now I know a refuge never grows  
> From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose  
> Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose  
> \- Hammer and a Nail by Indigo Girls

Solas had noticed that when his _Vhenan_ sat idle for more than a moment, she inevitably began to change things. He was fairly certain the instinct involved was inclined towards creating things, but she was nearly as likely to entirely take something apart if inspiration failed to strike.

“Has the kindling offended you, _ma lath?”_ he asked with some bemusement as they sat watch together by the fire one evening in the Hinterlands.

Ember gave him a quizzical look - befitting her title, he supposed - and then turned her gaze to examine the fragments of wood piling on the ground beneath her feet.

“Oh… well… I’m... making tinder?”

He nodded sagely. “No doubt the dead leaves and sticks nearby are all too damp from dew.”

“Exactly! See, this was totally on purpose!” The self-mocking grin she bestowed on him was lopsided. He resisted the urge to attempt restoring its symmetry by kissing one side of her lips and then the other, if only to save them both from splinters.

“Is something on your mind?” he asked, gently, settling down next to her on the blanket-padded log.

She shrugged, brushing her hands off, and reaching for a likely long stick with which to poke the fire. The log settled and broke in half, sending up sparks. Her smile evened out into one of satisfaction as she prodded the remaining wood into a pleasing base and set a fresh log on top to last until the next watch.

She huffed as she settled back, holding her hands up to be warmed by the renewed flames. “Honestly? I was designing a house in my head.”

Solas chuckled. “What sort of house?”

“A house against a hillside, with a little creek running nearby. Split level floors alternating up the hill, with a winding stairway leading to the top, and a nice brewing cellar dug into the hill beneath the second floor.” She sighed.

“What brought such things to mind?”

She shrugged. “Two things, I suppose. Sometimes I just do that, design buildings or other structures in my head. Did you know certain classical labyrinth patterns are symmetrical in weird ways? Like, on a sphere, or if you strung the directions for walking in beads, or something.”

He blinked, unsure what the latter had to do with the former, but before he could reply, she plowed on.

“I wanted to be an architect when I was a kid, but I didn’t think I could do the math.”

“Is that the second thing?”

“No, no, that’s still the first thing. The second thing is… well…” She looked down at her hands in her lap. “I was thinking about where we might live someday, when this is all over.”

He smiled, taking her hand in his. “I would love to know your thoughts on this, _ma lath.”_

She ducked her head, blushing. “I want enough land to make a big house with lots of rooms.”

He tilted his head. “Why so many?”

She pulled her hand from his, to gesture expansively. “So you have lots of walls for murals, and I can have workshops for different crafts, and there’s plenty of room for our friends to visit and children to play.”

“And what if I told you,” he leaned in to murmur in her ear, “that I could provide you with a secure place that already has such space for us?”

She turned and leaned in to kiss him on the lips, before grinning. “I would say I hope it has room around it, because I still want to build stuff, if only just for the fun of it.”

\-----

Solas found Ember sitting at his desk in the rotunda one afternoon, examining his quills and brushes.

He cleared his throat with some amusement as she held one up to examine it in front of the light. “Can I help you, _Vhenan?”_

She startled slightly, and then set the brush down with a guilty flush. “Oh, no, I was just looking at them while I waited for you.”

“Is something very interesting about them?”

“The pigments you use with the plaster. What are they made of?”

“Mostly they are ground minerals, though some come from plant resins, and others from animal shell or horn.”

“Animal shells?” She raised her eyebrows. “Wouldn’t those degrade over time?”

“Without the necessary fixatives, yes, they would.”

“Where do you get them?”

“I gather them as I travel, of course.”

“Like what?”

He smiled, gesturing for her to let him sit at his desk, so he could pull various small containers of powders out to show her. “This one is ground from barnacles that cling to spindleweed along the Storm Coast. This is spider shells.” He pulled her down onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her waist and tucking his chin against her shoulder. “It has been especially gratifying to gain regular access to ingredients like wyvern and dragon scale. Those are ordinarily very difficult to acquire. Their unique qualities have been a pleasing contribution to the most recent frescoes.”

She nuzzled against his temple for a moment before turning her head to look at his latest works along the walls of the rotunda. The most recent fresco’s bold, black lines had a sheen to them the others did not. As she tilted her head, jewel-toned rainbows refracted in the light. She hummed, nodding, and returned to nuzzling him.

“They’re beautiful, as always, love.”

_“Ma serannas, Vhenan.”_

\----- 

Solas was not especially surprised when the ball at Halamshiral had gained the Inquisitor and several of her inner circle suitors bent on everything from formal marriage and alliance to sordid seduction of selected body parts. Even he had received a few letters, though they naturally had a profoundly inaccurate sense of his true station or interests. Exasperated, many of them had taken to reading their respective proposals aloud to each other in humorous voices, and Varric ran betting pools on what bizarre gifts Ember and Cullen in particular would be sent next.

On one particularly notable occasion, someone managed to send Ember several bouquets of cut flowers that somehow survived the trip to Skyhold intact and blooming. Leliana passed them to Dagna for examination before determining that they were safe to keep.

Delighted, Ember had immediately carried them up to her room and distributed them in several containers. That evening, she sat happily on the floor before the fire ripping a ragged length of simple cotton weave into narrow strips, dipping the cloth in melted candle wax, and wrapping the trimmed stems of the flowers with the resulting tape.

“They are already preserved, _ma lath,”_ Solas observed with some bemusement, settling onto the sofa behind her.

“This wouldn’t preserve them anyway,” she replied, “but it lets me do this.” She took out several lengths of dried vine that had been soaking in water, and carefully shaped them into circlets and loose decorative knots, each secured with the waxed cloth. These she set aside to dry before the fire.

Solas tilted his head, trying to anticipate the purpose of the flower stems being bound to nothing, but kept silent, absently running his fingers through the loose waves of hair cascading down her back. A lock fell into her face, and she paused to tuck it behind one ear.

His smirk went unseen as she focused on her work, only for his mischievous fingers to ‘accidentally’ loose one strand of hair or another to fall across her face again. She gave a frustrated huff as she gathered her hair and began to wind it into a bun, but Solas calmly removed the hair from her hands.

“Allow me,” he murmured into her ear.

“Mrrr?” she chirruped, a sound she must have learned from a cat, and then sighed happily as he began to comb through her hair with deft fingers, and then braid it for her.

“I didn’t know you knew how to braid hair.”

He gave her a smug smile. “Who do you think kept your hair braided while you were unconscious after Sarhnia?”

She paused, turning to blink at him, and then gave him a surprised, delighted smile. “Oh, I am so taking advantage of this! You’re in trouble now, mister. You’re gonna be stuck braiding my hair every night when we’re on the road!”

He chuckled, handing her the unbound end of the braid, and placing one wrist dramatically against his forehead. “Oh no,” he deadpanned. “How ever will I survive running my fingers through the hair of a beautiful woman by firelight under the stars? If only the world knew of your cruelty, Inquisitor. Kingdoms would fall.”

She laughed, rising up onto her knees to fit her waist between his thighs and give him several sound kisses before settling happily back down onto the floor to continue her craft. He leaned forward to set his chin against her shoulder and gaze over her work, curious how it all fit together.

As the first of the vine circlets dried, Ember took several stems of flowers at a time and bound them in small clusters against the vine with more of the waxed cloth. The resulting garland of preserved flowers was bound at the end with colorful ribbons.

She rose up onto her knees again, and turned to place it delicately on his head.

“Perfect!” she grinned at him. “You look beautiful.”

He raised an eyebrow, careful not to let the delicate circlet slide off his head as she leaned in to kiss him several times. “You’re going to make us all wear flowers?”

“I thought we might play ring toss with Bull next time he gets drunk,” she replied, smirking.

Solas tried to assume a stern expression, but the image of the huge qunari walking tipsily across the courtyard with several rings of dried flowers caught in his horns made his shoulders shake with suppressed mirth. Ember’s smirk broadened into a grin as she removed the circlet from his head.

“The first are for my Freyja and Ostara shrines,” she admitted, looking down with a fond smile. “The rest I thought some of the ladies might like. Leliana might put it on her Andraste statue, and you know Josie would wear it if she had the chance. Even Cassandra has a romantic streak. She might appreciate something beautiful to wear that isn’t as delicate as it looks.”

Solas tilted his head. “I cannot quite picture the Seeker adorned in flowers. Are you certain she won’t try to punch you for it?”

Ember grinned. “Not if I have Cullen deliver it.”

He blinked. “Are you matchmaking, _Vhenan?”_

She leaned back in to murmur against his lips. “I wouldn’t dream of it, my love.”


End file.
